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Israeli Army Frowns on D&D
Big Rob found us a gem of a story about the Israeli Army frowning on D&D players. Apparently '18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the popular fantasy game are automatically given low security clearance.' I especially enjoyed the pictures of D&D players with swords, as generally the only thing in my hand during D&D is soda and/or swiss cake rolls.
I'm thinking that a few generals should meet up with Jack Chick and have a good long discussion about the evils of role playing.
Think about it. D&D attracts imaginitive players who are able to think for themselves. Now does that seem like people you want in your Army? I ship out to Marine boot camp Aug. 1st and people have told me over and over again that when I get there...I shouldn't stand out. D&D players are different...and normally very smart. In an army you want drones who can think for themselves but will never question orders. Why do you think the great dictators killed teachers???
but if IDF says that people who indulge in fantasy games, as a statistical group, have personality traits that make them a lower security risk, then I am inclined to believe them.
"They're really smart. They must know what they're talking about."
One possible characteristic not mentioned in TFA was: People who role-play might be more inclined to game the system - definitely not a desirable personality trait to have in personnel deployed in sensitive positions.
WTF? "Game the system"? If you play D&D you realize that "gaming the system" gets you in Shitsville with the game referee (the much maligned "Dungeon Master"). So if anything, D&D players are LESS inclined to "game the system".
I can't decide if you're an innocent clueless asshat or a troll. And I'm a fairly discerning reader. So hats off to you!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Bullshit. US military doctrine is built on soldiers who are flexible, able, and motivated. They don't want to see it in bootcamp, or expressed in ways deemed harmful to the unit. But they count on the fact they'll see it expressed in ways harmful to the enemy.
but if IDF says that people who indulge in fantasy games, as a statistical group, have personality traits that make them a lower security risk, then I am inclined to believe them.
There was a point in time where ECT in mental institutions was commonplace because it was endorsed by the American Psychology Association.
Today, we know that ECT only helps certain cases of clinical depression, and is used only in extreme cases when no other solution exists.
If you go further back with the same association, they used to perform labotamies. Do you think that practice is done today?
We need to be critical of experts. You cannot always agree with experts.
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And yet every actor and actress roleplays. Many authors roleplay, at least acting out what happens in their novels in their mind. In theory, elected representatives should roleplay in considering how a given piece of legislature will affect various different constituents.
Roleplaying is a normal everyday occurrence, its part of learning about anyone who isn't yourself or any job you don't currently do (like the Model United Nations groups in High School).
The only difference here is that these people wield maces and fireballs in their fantasy world instead of bayonets and bazookas. I have to wonder if these people had chosen to play an Avalon Hill wargame, if they'd have been given higher clearances.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
One possible characteristic not mentioned in TFA was: People who role-play might be more inclined to game the system - definitely not a desirable personality trait to have in personnel deployed in sensitive positions.
I see some issues here. How many politicians "game the system", yet have never played D&D? Ted Kennedy probably never played, but he's one of the masters, you have to be if you can drive drunk, drown a girl and not lose your licence and face a few year's hard time like he should have. The same goes for car salespeople. Lawyers.
Also, IDF has a big name attached to them, but that doesn't make their claims necessarily true.
I can't say much as I've never played a collector card game or RPG.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
You cannot always agree with experts.
But everyone on slashdot seems to think that you should always disagree with experts.
Being in the military is, by necessity, to be part of a team and the team has to come first,
D&D, and most other role-playing games are exactly the embodiment of this. They are about teams achieving things, and it is not uncommon for one member to make a personal (or ultimate) sacrifice so that the team can achieve their goal. What they seldom have however, is a strict hierachy. This is a good thing in that the team learns to work together through willing co-operation and pooling creativity and knowledge. In practice, this is not how a [modern Western] military unit operates. Instead, they condition soldiers to obey orders and not question.
If there is any basis for the Israeli army's bias other than ignorance, then it is the creativity and ability to think away from the official point of view that is the "problem."
Just too many D&D'ers must ask themselves what is the alignment of my army, and come up with the answer Lawful Evil.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I wish I had mod points for your post.
Being impressionable and in a sensitive position means you are ripe for the harvest in a counter intelligence situation. You will be much easier to convert to the opposition's cause as it will be much easier to have you see the issue from their point of view and develop sympathy for their position.
A flexible mindset isn't automatically an overly flexible mindset; it's just that much more prone to changes over time. A changed mindset and set of beliefs can manifest as treason.
So, in a way, the IDF is doing those soldiers a favor. They protecting Israel from an increased likelihood of treason, and they're protecting those soldiers from themselves.
Yeah, it's kind of a control freak thing, but it *is* a military organization.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
So, if you want to bring up playing around with fantasies...
Um, let's say someone believes that his country has a right to occupy a piece of land because 3000 or so years ago his ancestor obediently offered up his son to be a human sacrifice because a voice he heard in his head told him to. The voice in his head later rescinded its instructions to kill the guy's son, because he showed that he would value the approval of the voice in his head over that of a little boy one of his wives dropped off for him. This of course showed that human sacrifice was a-okay with the people of time, of course, but that's a talk for another time.
Okay, and then we have the guy who obtained great favor with his voice in his head when he offered up his virgin daughter to the mob for rape and/or murder if the would leave the three guys (who he suspected to be angels) alone.
Then we another guy who listened to the voice in HIS head which told him to clear town with his family because the voice was fixing to burn everyone alive because they were pissing the voice off. A wife looked back as they were leaving, the guy says, and was turned into a box of Morton's salt. At least that's what he told her kin when they asked where the hell she was.
Then we have the guy who heard a voice telling him to build a boat, put two of everything in it, and wait out a world flood which later no one else remembers happening, like, say, the Chinese, having been around for 4000 years or more.
That's reality-based community, not like them D&D fantasists.
You wouldn't want people who had strange ideas about reality in the ranks of your specialist armed forces.
I work with a retired Air Force Captain who has the same perspective. As he explains it, either the officers ordered the troops to mistreat the prisoners, or they didn't have control of their troops. Neither is excusable for an officer in the armed forces.
The corollary being that the soldiers who are taking the blame for it are, in a way, scapegoats, because the liability goes up the chain and somebody is getting away with it.
They want very particular types of initiative, in particular the initiative to take command of a situation when necessary. What they do not want is people who question authority.
I did some research a while back on the differences between eastern and western military doctrine in World War II. One of the keys was the the Soviets, for various reasons, allowed very little command flexibility in their ranks. Operations were planned to extremely minute details and all subordinates were expected to stick to the plan no matter what (one big reason was they had poor communications infrastructure to change the plan dynamically).
The west, in contrast, had less detailed plans, and relied on their officers adapting their tactics to the facts on the ground as they appeared.
was gonna add: if the Israeli army doesn't want weirdos who have a skewed sense of reality in their ranks, then they probably shouldn't accept fundamentalist religious types who believe the earth is 6000 years old or that god will send you to hell for all eternity for eating a goat, what with cloven hooves being unclean and all.
Funny you should mention that. Orthodox are not subject to the draft.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Now, if you have any concrete examples to the contrary (regarding the training of the soldiers), I would like to hear them, but for now, it just seems that you're making this up (or heavily extrapolating).
As with many things, a lot of it comes down to your own view, reflected in the choice of words. It's like the difference between cult and religion depending on which side you're on.
And with Army induction, you could call it training or brainwashing according to your opinion.
First off - killing. This is not something that comes naturally to the vast majority of people. It takes an extraordinary amount of pressue for most people to go as far as murder. To bring these people to the point at which they will kill requires extensive conditioning. My source for this was a talk given by a US Marine in a documentary in which he cited casualty statistics from WWII and modern psychological testing that came out with about 2/100 people being "natural killers." Clearly something radical has been done to the completed soldiers if they are now nearly all capable of killing (not that there may not be psychological trauma afterwards).
Now as to the actual techniques of how this is achieved, I'll offer the following examples. Note that this is only an outline of techniques that on "the other side" would be considered brainwashing.
Firstly, links to existing social values must be severed.
Secondly, links to the new social values must replace them.
Common techniques used by cults, professional interrogators, etc. that are in common with the army are as follows:
Hopefully, it can be seen how these support the above goals of bringing the recruits personal values into line with the army's and fostering dependance. Of course, the graduate of this, will see it as pride in the army, serving a greater cause or simply having endured it and "become a man." Of course, regardless of whatever has been gained, the recruit has traded in some measure of his own ability to measure the value of things and accepted the value system of the organization. As I said at the start of this, whether you want to regard it as brainwashing or training, is up to you. If you consider however, that psychologically, the exact same process and attitude change is gone through by an Al-Quaeda soldier in Afghanistan (by incidentally, the US Army trained Osama bin Laden) just as with a US marine, then you might feel a certain cognitive dissonance if you think of them as different. In both cases, recruits come to obey the orders and beliefs without questioning them.
I remember a kid who was half-way through boot camp, telling me gleefully how he was on whatever his jargon term was for latrine duty. He took pride in enduring the punishment - doing it by hand! He was one of the best examples of the effectiveness of these techniques I'd ever met. He was boasting about having to scoop out shit with his bare hands.
Oh come on, do you even know how Israeli soldiers are trained, or are you just relying on your political views of Israel?
You know nothing about my political views at the time of posting, so please spare me irrelevant and baseless personal
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Sorry, you're confusing self discipline in personal details with conformation to doctrinal procedures. As an avid D&D player in High School, a West Point grad and an ex M1 officer, I can tell you that if you can't think on your feet and figure out a new way to skin the cat, you won't survive long in mobile armored warfare, let alone dismounted urban warfare.
Recognize also the level you were working at and your particular unit. You didn't get to see how creative your battalion commander had to get to handle his missions with the incredibly lean Ranger force.
If you still doubt me, go back to some of the officers you admired most and ask them about operational and tactical flexibility. Get comfortable, you'll be there a while.
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
- General George Patton Jr
Great people don't need people to complete them, great people complete other people. -- Matthew Pawlikowski.